Freemium

How they do it: A lot of apps in the Apple AppStore are accessible for free but then only allow using limited features or a trial period for the full version. To have access to the full version permamently, the user has to purchase a premium version.

Hidden Revenue

How they do it: A lot of apps in the AppStore are available for free to the user, however while using the app the user is exposed to various advertisements.

Leverage Customer Data

How they do it: A lot of apps in the AppStore are available for free to the user, however while using the app, user behaviour and other information about the phone such as location are tracked. This data is then used to generate revenue with services such as targeted or location based advertisement.

Lock-in

How they do it: Apple has created an ecosystem of hardware and software combinations. For example can the native music app of the iPhone only be connected through the Apple software iTunes. This creates a lock-in effect, also when the user wants to synchronize other media across devices.

Open Source

How they do it: Swift is a programming language developed by Apple Inc. for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux. Swift was introduced at Apple’s 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Initially a proprietary language, version 2.2 was made open-source software under the Apache License 2.0 on December 3, 2015, for Apple’s platforms and Linux. In 2018, Swift was declared the number one programming language to develop mobile apps for iOS by TIOBE index, a measure of popularity of programming languages.

Razor And Blade

How they do it: Although the iPhone is not given away for free, Apple uses it as a platform to access to much more revenue opportunities through apps and other services beyond the pure hardware revenue.

Revenue Sharing

How they do it: All 3rd party apps that make revenue with the iPhone users have to give a specific cut to Apple. This applies for AppStore purchases as well as in-app purchases.

Two-sided Market

How they do it: The AppStore functions as a two-sided market with app developers and corporations on the one side and customers / users on the other side.

User Designed

How they do it: The AppStore is open to all independent users and developers, meaning every private or commercial developer can publish its own app to the store. After certification and approval from Apple, all other users can then access the apps.